The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention is now recommending fully vaccinated people put their masks back on when indoors in public at least in those areas where COVID-19 is spreading the fastest.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky stated Tuesday “the Delta variant behaves uniquely, differently” when compared with other versions of the virus – and vaccinated people “may be contagious and spread the virus to others.”

However, the CDC isn’t recommending that everyone mask up again, as he agency’s new guidelines are limited to those places that COVID transmission has been deemed “substantial” or “high,” – meaning there are either more than 50 cases per 100,000 people in the area, over a period of seven-days or the COVID-19 test positivity rate is higher than 5%.

(The one glaring exception to that rule is in K-12 schools nationwide, where the CDC is now recommending everyone mask up to protect kids and teachers .)

The main reason for the change is that, in areas where a lot of virus is circulating, the risk of getting infected, even for vaccinated people, is now very high.

To find out whether you’re in a place where transmission is substantial or high – you can use the CDC’s COVID Data Tracker, which provides data down to the county level.

COVID COLOR CODED MAP AND DATA TRACKER

(AL.COM/www.al.com)